Website Build and Release Strategy

Question

We have an ASP.Net MVC solution built in VS2008 and TFS2008. We use TFS Build and use Continuous Integration.

We have a deployment pipeline that enables us to progress a build, eventually, to our live site...

• Internal Dev (immediate deployment following a build)
• External Dev (used by internal testers to make sure it works on the production server)
• External Test (used by our client to test themselves)
• Live (self explanatory).

I have 2 questions relating to this

1. Which ones of these should be built in Debug and which in Release?
2. How should I write my TFSBuild.proj files to cope with this strategy?

Answer 1

As per your points, only the Internal dev should be in Debug mode. The External Dev should be in Release mode if you want to mimic the production environment